The “fun” part of politics in Kazakhstan is made of gossip and rumors. The latest is perhaps the most surprising. For the past couple of weeks, Kazakhstan’s social media has been buzzing with rumors of Dariga Nazarbayeva becoming the country’s vice president.
The March 15 constitutional referendum, among other things, introduced a presidentially appointed vice president position.
A career politician, Dariga Nazarbayeva is the eldest daughter of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who left power in 2019 after three decades at the helm. Once Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took power, a slow process of “de-Nazarbayevification” kicked off. The pace of this process accelerated after Qandy Qantar, the violent repression of urban protests in January 2022. At the time, elites still close to Nazarbayev were blamed for stoking the protest and orchestrating an attempted coup.
Within this context, Dariga was already on her way out of politics. She had been promoted to speaker of the Senate after Tokayev moved into the presidency, but she was dismissed in May 2020, just days before her birthday. Since Dariga was served that sour birthday present, she has been essentially absent from Kazakhstan’s political scene. She served as an MP for the ruling Nur Otan party between 2021-2022, but with far less flair compared to the previous years. In 2022, Nur Otan rebranded as Amanat.
